Summary

This chapter recalls Jisun’s childhood. Her father gave her a bank account when she was ten years old. He quizzed her on the balance at the end of each month, as a lesson to see if she kept up with how much money was getting put in and taken out. Jisun never did keep up with the account. To instill the significance of 3,364 won--the amount she miscalculated her account by--her father tasked her with making a list of “one hundred separate things you can buy with that money” (284). Jisun began asking her ajumma what things cost: fish, an apron, her ajumma’s monthly salary.

Instead of learning the value of money, Jisun realized that money is flexible and unreliable: “you could feed a family for a month or a single person one extravagant meal” (286). Ahn told Jisun that the account was her...